Date of Award

10-16-2023

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Education

First Advisor

Demetri Morgan

Abstract

The research question I pursued is: “How do Black feminist instructors who identify as spiritual define and embody pandemic pedagogy?” Pandemic pedagogy is a term used to describe the experiences of teachers and students at HEIs and K-12 schools as they navigate teaching and learning during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic (Schwartzman, 2020). I identified two general approaches in the current literature on pandemic pedagogies in postsecondary education: “fatalistic” approaches that bemoan the challenges faced by teachers and students during the pandemic, and “responsive” approaches that describe attempted solutions to these challenges, without addressing root causes. Conversely, “transformative” pandemic pedagogies are strategies that situate the necessary subversion of power dynamics in the classroom, and the role that the instructor plays in facilitating this disruption, as part of their solutions. To study what “transformative” pandemic pedagogies could look like, I used qualitative methods to examine the distinct yet related realms of online postsecondary education, Black Feminist Thought, spirituality, and embodiment through the formation of a faculty learning community (FLC) called the Community of Care and Practice (CCP). Using the Curtis Method (CM), I addressed my research questions by observing, analyzing, and later describing how Black feminist educators apply Black feminist pedagogies (BFP) and spirituality to their teaching practices during the ongoing pandemic. The behaviors that we engaged in—(a) edification through fellowship, (b) spirituality as resistance to transactional teaching, and (c) collective embodied vulnerability—constitute a new term for teaching and learning in the COVID-19 era: Black feminist pandemic pedagogy.

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